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Free public domain audiobooks

Screenshot of librivox.org captured 2026-07-20
Page preview · captured 2026-07-20

Resurfaced independently across 6 calendar years, with breakout response in 5 of them.

submissions
9
submitters
9
observed span
2015–2025
peak thread · 81 comments
370 pts
latest 20+ return · 2025-06-01
259 pts

Submission timeline

2007–2026

One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.

First comments on top threads

HN comment order

I have been working on remastering some audiobooks from there, once I got more books done, I will have a proper section for people to download them for free from my website (direct links from the listing, no bs). Remastering as in removing background noise, EQing, compression and normalization of audio levels and reducing the librivox intro to the start of the audiobook only, rather than annoying people every chapter.

Hey, so I'm the very part time volunteer sysadmin for LibriVox, can I use this opportunity to ask for help? I have a day job and two kids, the amount of time and energy I give to LibriVox is sufficient to keep the lights on, but not much else. We don't have money, in fact we don't even have a legal entity, any donations we get are handled by Internet Archive, who also kindly provide us our two servers (yes…

louniks·286-point thread·

Another site, which includes a smaller but more professionally curated set of recordings, is Lit2Go (https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/books/). My children and I for example have greatly enjoyed Lorraine Montgomery’s recording of “Curly and Floppy Twistytail”, a series of delightful nonsense stories performed with gusto. (https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/183/curly-and-floppy-twistytail-t...) They’re not all aimed at children either, high quality recordings of Dracula, David Copperfield, etc

University of South Florida has an amazing program called Lit2Go, in which they have public domain books narrated by professional voice actors[0]. I have had mixed results with the quality of librivox recordings, though I very much respect and appreciate people who are willing to attempt it. Lit2go is wonderful quality. [0] http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/

The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.

Breakout years
5

100+ points or 50+ comments

Total points
1204

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Total comments
266

reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking

Every submission

DateTitle as submittedByPointsComments
2015-07-08Librivox – free public domain audiobooksbmaeser20
2015-11-05LibriVox – free public domain audiobooksAmorymeltzer20
2016-02-20LibriVox: free public domain audiobooksFirst breakoutpmoriarty17937
2020-06-03LibriVox – free public domain audiobooksitsspring20
2020-06-18LibriVox: Free Public Domain Audiobooksdrummer28681
2021-11-29Free public domain audiobooksHall induction · Best threadagmm37059
2023-05-07Free Public Domain Audiobooksdoener10322
2025-01-27LibriVox: Free Public Domain Audiobooksarchargelod10
2025-06-01LibriVoxLatest 20+ point returnbookofjoe25967